A student could fail in the old schools. He can fail in the new ones, also, except that government doesn't let it show. For one thing, knowledge and performance standards are generally lower than 30 years ago. (One day last year, I discovered that not a single student in one upper-level class I teach had ever heard of William Jennings Bryan.)
Because government social policy requires every student to succeed, government practically forbids you not to procure a high school degree. That's if you stay in school -- something huge numbers of students don't do. Likewise, government education policy forbids even the most awful schools to fail absolutely. The teacher unions wouldn't like it if dues-paying members lost their jobs.
As a remedy, government-funded vouchers for students who transfer to private schools make absolute sense. As a political expedient, no way. The education unions won't allow in public education the sort of accountability the free market enforces in commercial situations: i.e., succeed -- or go out of business.
Yes, back to the Capitol comes the lawmaking power of the mighty state of Texas. To make a few deft procedural adjustments, lower some taxes, raise other taxes, then -- all too likely -- adjourn, leaving the big questions unsorted: How can teaching and learning standards be raised across the board?
In these self-esteeming times of ours, can we learn to penalize failure as well as reward success? Can we get across to students, in breadth and detail, that which they need in order to function in the most challenging moral and economic environment ever known?
Can we even suggest the necessity of knowing the name of the presidential candidate who bade us not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold?
A different kind of cross looms for today's luckless, over-patronized student: a cross of ignorance.